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Dream Theater - Live in Tokyo/5 Years in a Livetime CD (album) cover

LIVE IN TOKYO/5 YEARS IN A LIVETIME

Dream Theater

 

Progressive Metal

3.83 | 208 ratings

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Cygnus X-2
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars This reissue dvd comprised of Dream Theater's first two home videos is a mixture of Images & Words era Dream Theater and Falling Into Infinity era Dream Theater. Both of these videos act as sort of a video biography of the band with a lot of live performances in between. Included with this set are all of Dream Theater's music videos (Pull Me Under, Take the Time, Another Day, Lie, The Silent Man, and Hollow Years) as well as a variety of performances including snippets from their Ronnie Scott "uncovered" show, as well as most of their 1993 show in Tokyo on the Images & Words tour. The commentary for this set is informative, funny, and I really enjoy how this guys critique and poke fun at themselves while giving the viewer snippets of obscure information that only a seasoned Dream Theater fan would know.

The first disc of this set is the entire Images and Words Live in Tokyo video remastered in sound and in video quality. The video itself is a very large portion of their 1993 show in Tokyo as well as video clips from all over the world. Also here are all the videos from Images & Words. Like Marillion, Dream Theater were never destined to be video stars, and these videos are prime examples of that. They look too over the top and too much like a hair/glam metal band than anything else in these videos, and even LaBrie's Napalm Death shirt for the Pull Me Under video can't save them. Bu there's a lot more to the video than that. It's always fun to watch Dream Theater perform with Kevin Moore. Although not as talented as Rudess, Moore shows he's no slouch at the keys many times throughout the entire show. On this video is also To Live Forever, one of the many unreleased songs from Dream Theater. This song comes complete with an interesting jam between the band in which they quote many songs, Within Without You being one of the prominent ones. What you also get here is a 6 string version of Puppies on Acid, which would become the 7 string motif for the Mirror off of Awake. The snippets of other material on this video are also interesting, although they act more as interludes between the live material than anything else (the commentary for this show is very good, they are one of the better commentators for their own work that I've heard).

The second disc is a collection of many shows starting from the Awake era all the way through the show that was recorded and called Once In a Livetime. A lot of material is played here, from the acoustic shows, to the cover show in Paris that material was released from for the Change of Seasons EP, to a version of Metropolis that was taken from when they were opening for Deep Purple and ELP. The acoustic shows have a mellow feel, but I don't think that Petrucci was meant to play acoustic guitar live, as he actually often plays the electric guitar during these performances, and it really throws the whole acoustic mood off. Nice renditions of some of the softer Dream Theater songs, like Anna Lee and Cover My Eyes. The Awake era footage also offers some cool renditions of 6:00 (with Sherinian on keyboards before he was an official member) and Voices. The Ronnie Scott's show footage is also cool with a great version of Easter (from Marillion's Seasons End) performed by the band with Steve Hogarth and Steve Rothery, an excerpt from the Yes Medley performed with Steve Howe, as well as a rollicking version of Damage Inc. with the vocalist from Napalm Death (you can actually see Petrucci laughing during this song). Once again, the commentary is top notch and the band offers interesting information as well as pokes fun at each other and what they are seeing on the video.

In the end, this live compilation of videos is pretty cool, but I don't find myself watching it that often, and when I do, I watch it with the commentary on because I find it to be very funny. The audio throughout is very nice as well as the video, and I think there's something here that every fan of progressive metal (well, not every fan) will enjoy. It's not their best lvie video, but it's not half bad. 3.5/5.

Cygnus X-2 | 3/5 |

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